Today, walking along the wide pavements of Slovenska cesta, Ljubljana’s main artery, one is unaware of how different this part of the city was just a century ago. At the period, the project of the decisive modernisation of Ljubljana –until then still a provincial seat of Carniola – began, and Ljubljana evolved into the vital and dynamic capital of the ”banovina”, an economic, financial, and business centre. And such a centre needs an image to match. It needs architecture that reflects its new ambitions, urban planning that accompanies this, as well as the content of a vibrant urban life.
To tell the story of the emergence of modern Ljubljana, the exhibition The Heart of the City takes as its starting point the construction of the Banka Slovenije building, then Ljubljanska kreditna banka, the first monumental architecture in the interwar period, which undoubtedly broke new ground in the development of the city. The bank building is a testimony to the modernist architectural tendencies that in the coming years would transform this part of the city into a new centre, showing a monumentality and progressiveness that testify to the self-confidence of Ljubljana’s post-war generation, while also introducing new, higher standards of living in the city. The ambitious project of erecting the current Banka Slovenije building in the years immediately after the First World War heralded the development of today’s Slovenska cesta into a new city centre, a development sometimes ruthless towards the old but committed to comprehensive development and the well-being of its inhabitants.
A number of old images, postcards, documents, and plans guide visitors through the exhibition, showing the project of modernising the city centre in the interwar period, its architectural and urban transformation, but also fragments of the new everyday life, middle-class life, favourite places of Ljubljana’s inhabitants of the period, as well as places we still visit today. For the exhibition we have also produced a documentary film with the same title, which gives a comprehensive overview of the history and present of the bank building. “The Heart of the City” is thus a story about how we live with direct links to the past today, and how every step forward is impossible without looking back.
Produced by: Banka Slovenije
Exhibition created by: Špela Goltes and Vladimir Vidmar
Designed by: Špela Goltes
MGBS Curator: Vladimir Vidmar
We would like to thank the following for their images: Zmago Tančič, Ljubljana Historical Archives, National Museum of Contemporary History, Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Slovenia (Ljubljana Regional Unit, Photo library), Slovene Ethnographic Museum, Slavic Library (private collection of Ljubljana postcards by Milena Žnideršič, digital copies held by MKL - Slavic Library), NUK Cartographic Collections, Digital Library of Slovenia (dLib) – dLib.si, Matjaž Šporar, grandson of the photographer Peter Naglič, Helga Kambič, Bogo Zupančič, Milan Udovč, Simon Pintar
The photo by the architect František Krasny is taken from: www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC72NFP_architekt-frantisek-krasny-046
We would like to thank Janez Bogataj for his family memories and testimonies about historical Ljubljana.
You can watch a film about the history of the Banka Slovenije building here: